Half of 2011's PCs to use CPU GPUs

Around half of the personal computers shipping this year will drive displays using CPU-integrated graphics engines.

So says market watcher IHS iSuppli, and we'd not argue with its claim. Intel's second-generation Core i processors and AMD's Fusion chips, all have on-board GPUs, as does last year's line of Core i parts.

Even those machines - notebooks in particular - with discrete GPUs too will probably fall back on the integrated graphics for low-performance work such as animating the OS' UI and video playback.

But the trend is already well established. Some 432.2m graphics chips shipped in 2010, according to Jon Peddie Research (JPR). Intel - which only makes integrated graphics - accounted for more than half of that total. Throw in contributions from Nvidia and AMD, and the number of IGPs shipped runs to something in the order of 325m units - the vast majority.

Inevitably, the vast majority of these will move out of the chipset and into the processor.

Back in 2009, JPR forecast the end of the chipset-integrated GPU in 2012. ®